Vince Flynn - Consent To Kill

Gould put the car in drive and pulled out onto Annapolis Road. A few blocks later her car took the Blue Star Memorial Highway south. His plan was to spend the rest of the morning familiarizing himself with the countryside. When he lived in the States he'd spent a little time in both Annapolis and Baltimore and had gone on two cruises of the Chesapeake. One was for school and the other was a private outing, a day of sailing that Gould remembered fondly. A friend of his father's had taken them. His sisters and mother were left at home. Gould remembered it well because they had entered a regatta and it had been thrilling. The weather was perfect; sunny, warm, and blustery.

He had spent zero time, however, in the area where Rapp lived just south of Annapolis. He wanted to make sure what the map showed actually existed, and was where it was supposed to be. In a country like America this was not usually a problem, but in some of the Third World hell-holes where Gould had served, good maps were rare. No matter what, though, a map was still just a map. A flat representation of a real place. It helped with names and places, but still, to get a real sense of what was out there, you had to see it with your own eyes. Maps, unless they were extraordinarily good ones, did not show foot paths through the woods, they did not show clumps of bushes, and they did not tell you which way the wind blew. And then there was the change of seasons to consider. What might be a great place to lie in wait in the summer might be useless in the winter. All of these things needed to be experienced firsthand, but still one had to be very careful. Especially when dealing with a man like Rapp. Reconnaissance was only useful in a situation like this if your target remained oblivious to the fact that he was being watched. Reconnaissance was in many ways the most difficult aspect of Gould's job. Training and planning were important, but they were things that he could control in an almost lablike setting. Reconnaissance meant that he had to expose himself.

Gould continued south for approximately five minutes and then turned east. Most of the cars were headed west at this point so traffic was light. He continued to play the recordings as he went, half listening, half thinking about how quickly the ebb and flow of the operation had turned. Everything had gone so smoothly until this morning. They'd had no trouble entering the country, all of the money was safely transferred into untraceable accounts, and they had followed Rielly home without incident. And then they had come face to face with Rapp and Claudia had opened her mouth. This was exactly what Gould was thinking when a snippet of the recorded conversation caught his attention. He could scarcely believe what he was hearing. He was still in a surly mood, upset with Claudia and believing firmly that she had gotten pregnant intentionally. He was lamenting how quickly things had turned when lady luck came roaring back into his life via a simple phone call. The conversation had taken place between Anna Rielly and a friend barely an hour ago. That phone call was followed quickly by a second one where Rapp's wife was making an appointment for him to see a doctor. An orthopedic surgeon. The next conversation was the doctor calling for Rapp. He asked Rapp to explain the problem. The short version was that Rapp could barely bend his left knee. The doctor told him to try and stay off it and come in immediately. They would do an MRI and then decide if he needed surgery.

Gould pulled over to the side of the county road and checked his map. Now that he thought back on it Rapp had been walking with a slight limp when he'd seen him earlier in the morning. Surgery, he thought to himself. Could I be so lucky? If Rapp had to go under the knife, he'd be laid up for a while and Gould's job would be made significantly easier. Gould yanked the car back into drive and waited for a small tanker truck to pass. Gould was already plotting, exploring any possible way he could make Rapp's death look remotely like an accident. A car crash would be difficult with the type of vehicles they drove. As long as they were wearing their seat belts both the BMW and the Audi would protect them from any crash Gould could help orchestrate.

Several hundred yards ahead, Gould watched a truck turn off the road. At the moment he didn't think much of it, but as he slowed for a stop sign he looked to his left and noticed the truck parked in the driveway of someone's home. The driver was out of the cab and dragging a hose over to a silver tank next to the house. Gould read the stenciled lettering on the door. Chesapeake Bay Propane Co. Underneath was a phone number and address. Gould memorized both and continued on. He remembered some obscure fact that he'd picked up years ago. Where, he could not remember, but it had something to do with natural gas being odorless. He tried to picture Rapp's house, but couldn't be sure. It was a possibility, he supposed. How else would they heat their homes in this rural area? After he got to Rapp's house he would look into it. The extra million would come in handy, and if it was done right, there would be no reason for the CIA to come looking for him. They would of course suspect foul play, but without hard evidence, there would always be doubt.

The Saudi delegation arrived on four massive 747 long-haul aircrafts. The planes were designed by Boeing to carry 400 plus passengers depending on how they were configured, but these were no ordinary planes. Each one was owned privately by a member of the Saudi royal family. Due to an almost endless source of petrodollars, and the Saudis' need to constantly trump one another, each plane was lavishly decorated in the most opulent manner possible. Marble showers with gold fixtures, king-size beds, and Jacuzzis were standard on each plane, as were workout facilities, steam rooms, and gaming rooms. Plasma TV screens were in great abundance as well as DVDs, CDs, and pretty much anything that had an ounce of entertainment value. Each wide-body plane carried a world class chef, masseuse, manicurist, and barber. The jumbo jets were the equivalent of flying private yachts. Not counting the flight crew and staff, fewer than fifty passengers flew on each plane.

Maintaining this lavish lifestyle was anything but easy. Two separate 747s loaded with security people, protocol officers, junior diplomats, and servants had arrived earlier in the week. Entire five-star hotels had been booked, the top floor in some cases reserved for just one person. Extra cigarettes were ordered in quantities befitting an army going into battle. The hotels stocked up on the most expensive cognac, the finest cigars, and the rarest of wines. Escort services flew in call girls from Chicago, Miami, New York, and L.A. When the Saudis came to town they provided a boost to the local economy that was akin to hosting a major sporting event. Instead of doing it with tens of thousands of people, though, they simply did it with a thousand or less.

The protocol officers had argued over every detail of the state visit. It started with lodging. When the president offered Blair House to the king, it looked like things were off to a good start, but it all went downhill from there. The foreign minister, minister of commerce, and minister for Islamic affairs all wanted to stay at the Saudi ambassador's estate outside the city. The estate was big, but not big enough to handle two, let alone three, of the ministers and their entourages. The foreign minister's people argued that he had the most important job. The minister of commerce's people argued that the ambassador was his full brother, and thus it was his right to use the estate, and the minister of Islamic affairs' people refused to give a reason other than the fact that it was what Prince Muhammad bin Rashid wanted. In the end this was reason enough. Rashid had the ear of the clerics, and his contacts ran deep in the state security agencies. In many ways he was the most feared man in Saudi Arabia. Only King Abdullah and a handful of young princes dared stand up to him.